The Contractor shall research 30 selected U.S. metropolitan areas which have experienced population loss since 1940 in order to learn what happens under non-growth conditions to the streams of people, capital, ideas, and administrative controls which connect a metropolitan area with the rest of the nation. The Contractor shall examine how these changes are transmitted through the structure of the metropolitan community to influence the level and distribution of welfare in society, and the policy implications and strategies to prevent localized deterioration of welfare. The objective is to construct a theoretical generalization of the process of metropolitan change without growth.